


overwhelmed + i'm overstepping bounds.

by Sagamohr



Series: run away, but we're running in circles. [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 'Stiles Fucking Stilinski', (derek doesnt handle being dead good), Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Alternative Universe - Guardian Angel, Explicit Language, Guardian Angel!Derek Hale, M/M, POV Derek Hale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, slow burn (?), trigger warning: car accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22305700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sagamohr/pseuds/Sagamohr
Summary: Derek Hale didn't think he'd live to see 30.Derek Hale definitely didn't think he'd die on his 24th birthday.Derek Hale didn't think he'd be lucky enough to be a Guardian Angel, considering his... well, everything.But Derek Hale definitely didn't think he'd get stuck looking after oneStiles Stilinski.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: run away, but we're running in circles. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616863
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	1. i/ii

Derek Hale blinked into consciousness, groaning low in his chest.

The room he woke up in was very white, very bright… almost like a hospital room but without any of the hospitality. Y’know, like pictures on the wall… or even wallpaper on the wall. It was shocking. Even the tile _grout_ was blistering white, almost too painful to squint at. It was too clean, too clinical. Hospital room without the hospitality. With another glance around the room, Derek noticed a lack of any hospital standard equipment. He wasn’t hooked up to anything, no strange wires attached to his chest or head, and he was in his own room… that only held a single twin bed. 

Fear twinged curiosity got his voice box kicked into action. “Hello?”

Nothing. No answer. The fear tweaked in his chest and the young man propped himself up on his elbows, wincing at the tightness in his shoulders.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Derek called, coughing slightly. His throat was tight with dryness. He looked around, noticing that he was in fact, in a room with only a bed in it. There wasn’t even a side table for water. _The fuck?_

“Good morning sunshine!” Trilled a voice from the doorway. Had that always been there? Derek squinted slightly, looking at the figure in the doorway, carrying what looked like a tray. “It's a pleasure to see you awake, my goodness you had us all worried!” The voice continued. There was something not adding up here. Derek wasn’t sure what it was; the too-bright lights keeping him from seeing things clearly, or the faint haze that seemed to emit from around the person - Derek assumed that the thing speaking was human - but whatever was going on, he was quickly growing very tired of it. “You were out just a smidge longer than the others, so we were going to wake you up tomorrow if you didn’t do so yourself, but looks like we don’t have to do that now!”

He lifted a hand, rubbing down his face weakly. She reminded him of someone he couldn’t place his finger on. 

“I need water.” Croaked the twenty-four-year-old.

The bright haze dimmed around the person who entered his room, showing off a young looking brunette with a nearly cartoonish smile plastered on her face. “Oh of course! Comin’ right up!”

If he wasn’t as tough as he claimed to be, Derek would have flinched the second the bouncy little brunette had careened into his room. Was this even a room? The longer he remained here the more the tiny voice in the back of his mind told him he was in a cage. He wasn’t sure if he could go so far as to call it a hospital room. There was nothing - outside of the very white and clean looking walls - that suggested he was in a hospital. His attention flickered back to the sound of water being poured into a glass, and he once more propped himself up after noticing he had sunk back against the pillows. 

She passed the glass over to him and gave him a brilliant smile. “How’re you feeling, sugar?”

The Hale boy took a minute, mentally running through his body. Aches and pains, a dull, growing headache in the back of his head. Strange, he hadn’t felt this dull pain a few minutes ago. He twisted his shoulders slightly, shrugging.

“Like I’ve been hit by a car,” Derek grumbled, raising the cup to his mouth to take a drink.

She gave a soft laugh. “Well, that’s normal for someone who was hit by a car.”

Derek choked on the water in his mouth.

The nurse - or whoever she was - rushed over, thumping him hard between the shoulder blades. “It’s okay! You’re okay, it’s not like you can die _again._ ”

Die again? Derek covered his mouth, coughing into his palm, eyes watering. What was she talking about? Die again? What? When he was sure he wasn’t choking to death and he didn’t need her support - or her flat palm pounding his back - he set the glass down on her tray and settled back against the pillows. “Die again?” Derek repeated, eyes narrowing in both confusion and some anger. 

She hesitated, a slight crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Honey… don’t you know where you are?”

“No!” Derek said loudly, his limit reached for beating around bushes and tip toeing around the truth. He took a second, hoping to curb the edge in his voice. “No, I have no clue where I am. I don’t know who you are, why I’m here, why I apparently can’t _die again_ …”

She paused, her cartoonish smile beginning to droop, the crease between her eyebrows deepening slightly. “Derek, you were hit by a car on your way home.”

Silence. 

“You’re an angel now.” She bit the corner of her lip and rested her hand on his forearm, trying to be comforting. “You’ll be assigned to your human soon, probably as soon as tomorrow morning.” She drew her hand back when he flinched.

Derek’s mind was going a thousand miles a minute. Dead? He died? Derek fucking Hale, was dead? He was hit by a fucking car on his way home? Home from where? The Hale boy looked up at the ceiling, his chest tight with sadness and fear and anxiety. An angel. Assigned a human. ‘ _Your human_.’ Wait. Did that mean he was going to be someone’s guardian angel? The thought made him laugh, a weak choke of a laugh, and the brunette tried to smile at him again, touching the swell of his bicep. 

He didn’t bother to shake her off, voice quiet when he spoke. “I can’t be dead.”

“What’s the very last thing you remember, honey?”

He stopped, chewing on his lip now, thinking back. He had gone out for his birthday. A bar, some dirty, hole in the wall that made the best Jagerbombs for nearly half the price anywhere else. It was his bar, the same place he went to when he tried to drink underage - and got caught. The same hole in the wall bar where he brought a girl home from. There were fried dill pickles and a platter of sliders that leaked grease onto the plate, and more rounds, more shots, more laughter. Derek, drunk and happy, had looked at the time and then back to his buddies. What had he said?

“‘I have to head home’,” Intoned the brunette, shifting her weight carefully from foot to foot. “‘I got work in the morning’.” 

Working at that goddamn auto shop, Derek mentally groused. They routinely overworked him and underpaid him. He only stuck around to help his uncle Peter out, and even then it was a struggle to keep the lights on afterwards. Derek was consistantly complaining about leaving, finding a better job, shutting up when his uncle would cuff him around the head. 

“I left the bar,” He said softly, the memories beginning to come together properly. 

“I was walking on the road because I didn’t want to fall in the mud next to the sidewalk.”

Silence swallowed the room. Derek didn’t remember getting home. He didn’t remember crossing the road - or trying to, and he definitely couldn’t place the thundering sound of a car’s horn blaring at him, or the blistering white lights of the oncoming car that would take his life. Everything after walking out of the bar, was hazy and hard to decipher. 

“I _died_.” Derek whispered.

The brunette beside him nodded, and gave his bicep a squeeze before she stepped back from his bedside. “You’re more than welcome to stay here, as long as you need to.” She said, motioning to the room, which started to materialize in some more furniture, soft ivory, antique creams… all soft colors in the cold white room. It was an attempt to warm it up. Derek set his jaw, nodding, scared that if he asked how she did that, how she managed to make these things appear, that he would have succumbed to his wildy racing thoughts.

There was no way he was actually dead… right? 

“We all gather in the foyer in about,” she looked down at her wrist, as if she was scanning for a clock of some sort. Ah, so there was more of them. “An hour or so for a quick meeting and to eat.” She paused, looking around the room before she settled her gaze back on Derek. “Come down if you’d like. There’ll be someone to help you find your way if you decide to come.” She left the pitcher of water and his cup on the side table, giving him another smile. “I’m glad you’re awake, but I’m sorry you’ve had to learn of it like this.”

“Me too.” Derek whispered, watching as she started to walk out of the room. “What’s your name?” He called after her.

There was some hesitation on her part, and she turned back to face him. “Nora.”

“...Thank you, Nora.” He said softly, and she smiled once more, disappearing out into what he assumed was the hall. Once he was alone in his room, Derek leaned back against the pillows and sighed. How could this have happened? He _knew_ better than to walk on the road, especially down in that neighbourhood! His uncle- 

Derek’s heart tightened. His uncle must be completely devastated. He squeezed his eyes closed against the onslaught of emotions, hands tightening into fists before he surged up, throwing the blanket up over his legs to stand on the floor. He was angry, devastated, anxious about the state of his family losing _yet another member_ -

He knocked the glass to the floor, water spilling everywhere.

A knock on his door startled him, and he walked over to it, throwing it open. “What?”

It wasn’t Nora, but someone else. A male, tall and dark caramel skinned. “Hello,” He said relatively contently. “I heard a clatter, is everything okay?”

_Is everything okay?_

“No, nothing’s okay. I’m _dead_ ,” Derek hissed. “I’m here, where ever _here is_ , without being able to see my family, without knowing how they’re doing, how long I’ve been dead… is my uncle okay? Can I see him? Do I get perks to this or am I stuck in this room for the rest of my undead life?” At some point Derek had started shouting, and he had to stop to catch his breath. The taller male sighed, and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. Derek didn’t flinch from the strange touch, instead calming near instantly.

“You’re under a lot of stress,” said the other male, in a tone he would have considered ‘condescending’ in any other sense. “It’s okay to feel like this, and it’s okay to lash out. But we’re all here in this place for the same reason: our time helping others isn’t complete.”

Derek choked on a snort, smothering it under a cough instead. Under a lot of stress was the understatement of the year. But… Helping people? He wasn’t a helpful person. He barely had friends, he tolerated only a slice of the entire population back in Beacon Hills. He could barely tolerate his uncle! “Helping others?” He finally asked, unsure if he even wanted to hear the answer to this.

“Do you want to come down and listen to what’s got to be said? That’ll answer a lot of your questions, I’m sure.”

“I…”

“I’m sure Nora already went over this with you,” he said, waving his hand slightly. “But you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do yet. You can take all the time you need to sit and process and deal with the news. Once you’re ready, once you think you can handle taking on the responsibility that comes with being an angel, Nora and I will help you there, too.”

Derek’s shoulders sagged, and the fiery overpowering surge of emotion drained from his body. “I should lay down.”

“Alright.”

With the stranger’s help, Derek made his way back into the room, sitting on his bed as the other angel - that's what he was, right? An angel? Literally? - cleaned up the mess he had made in his rage. He didn’t realize at some point the uncomfortable whiteness of the room had dulled a little, like someone had figured out how the dimmer in the room worked. The sounds of the pitcher being moved almost made Derek laugh. He wasn’t going to knock anything over anymore, not with how heavy his heart felt with all of this information. He’d definitely sit and process this.

The man stopped, looking back at Derek with a sad smile. “I’m Boyd, by the way. I’m leaving tomorrow morning, but Nora and the others will take good care of you.”

Derek nodded. “Thanks, Boyd.” His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and he leaned back against the pillows, a weariness beginning to settle deeply in his bones. He was dead. Actually dead. He was an angel! A fuckin’ angel…

The lights dimmed considerably in the room once again and Derek closed his eyes. Boyd walked out of the room as the newly noted angel chuckled to himself, a sound he wasn’t sure he would actually ever hear again.


	2. ii/ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek realizes that being a Guardian Angel is nothing how the movies used to portray them.

“Please welcome Derek Hale to the Guardian community!”

Derek lifted a hand from his spot in the back of the room, watching as everyone settled in for the meeting. He had been dead for three days, but apparently _three weeks_ had passed on Earth. He was adjusting to his new status of ‘dead’ and ‘not among the living’ pretty well, considering what had happened only a few days ago.

He had remained in his room for almost two additional days after his encounter with the other angels. It was by the grace of G-... By the grace of his stubborn ass that he got out and decided to explore, and see things, and meet the others. Besides, he had nothing better to do, and he was growing tired of Nora fretting over him whenever she happened to pop in and out of wherever they happened to be. Derek was positive this was all some sort of sick joke, something he’d wake up from. But he didn’t. By day three he was ready to commit himself to whatever this was, because what else did he have? What did he have to lose if he didn’t?

At the front of the room an elderly man with pearly white wings stood. There was no halo, no white toga, nothing beyond the wings that kept Derek from thinking this was still a well established prank. He began speaking about assigning humans, reminding those who hadn’t yet found their human that it would happen soon. Time moves differently between here and Earth. Didn’t it always? That’s exactly how most of the science fiction movies got away with inaccuracies, right? As if any of that meant anything here, apparently. The twenty four year old choked on a laugh, pretending to pass it off as just that.

No one coughed here. There was no such thing as sickness. ‘It’s a human reaction, don’t worry, you’ll grow out of those very soon’. Someone had said to him in passing when he coughed at the dining table. 

Apparently he hadn’t been an angel long enough to shed his human habits.

A rapping on the table brought everyone’s attention back to the person at the front. “Now, I’ll be calling the five names that have received their humans!” Came the booming voice of the man at the front. “We usually do eight, but we don’t want to overwhelm our new recruits so soon.” Mentally the Hale boy corrected himself. That wasn’t technically a man, right? He was an angel. Derek wasn’t sure what the proper terminology was, and for a few minutes he deliberated on asking someone about it. At first glance, the being at the front was clearly a man, that much was true, but was he? Lost in thought, he watched as a couple of people stood and walked to the angel in the front, handed a file.

Huh. They had _files_. The idea made him smirk.

“Derek Hale!” Called the man, and jolted out of his thoughts, the Hale boy pushed off from the wall and walked the length of the room towards him. A file was pushed into his hands, a smile sent his way, and Derek returned to his place against the wall, opening the file up. He had seen the smiles on the faces of some of the angels around him, others were congratulating them, or consoling them. A strange feeling coiled in his chest. Derek saw his name printed at the top as if it had been printed from a type-writer. He pulled the front page back, ready to see what was in store for him.

Almost immediately he wished he hadn’t.

A very familiar face grinned up at him.

His heartbeat pounded heavily in his ears, and his shoulders stiffened in anger. In annoyance? Derek definitely _wasn’t_ happy with this. “This has to be a joke.” Derek grumbled, catching the attention of Boyd, who didn’t receive a human this time. He wasn’t upset or anything; he knew that all good things come with time, and there was a reason behind each and every time he wasn’t given a file.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to be a little nosey. “What’s wrong?” Asked the man, and Derek shoved the file into his hands, grateful for someone to take the picture away from him.

Boyd looked down, eyebrows furrowing. “Uh… mic…-” He cleared his throat. “Mieczyslaw?” Somehow he managed not to garble the name in his mouth. “Is it the _name_ that you’re upset with-?”

“I know this kid.” Derek growled, cutting Boyd off as he ran a hand over his face, closing his eyes briefly. “He goes by Stiles, since no one can say his name like you just did.” With a sigh he opened his eyes and reached for the file, the corners of his mouth turned down. 

“This kid is a piece of work. His best friend’s an idiot.”

“You two have a ...personal connection?” Boyd asked, easily handing the file back with a slight grin.

He knew that tone, it was a tone his uncle took whenever Derek failed to bring a girl home. “Not… like that,” Derek warned, eyes flashing slightly. “I used to watch a buddy’s sister, Erica, after school. I’d pick her up from school, she was in the same class as Stiles and Scott.” God that felt like a lifetime ago already. 

“She’d bitch about them all the time. That’s how I know him.”

His foul language caught another passerby’s attention, and the twenty-four year old waved off the frown. Fuck off. It wasn’t as if they weren’t all capable of swearing, it was just something a lot of them considered a ‘human habit’. Why work so closely with alive people, when you couldn’t act like one? Ridiculous, something Derek intended to hold close to his chest as he continued his … afterlife, here. Wherever here was.

Back to the thought at hand, though: of course his first human would be one he already knew, one he didn’t care much for at all. Why on Earth did Stiles of all people need a guardian angel?

The black male peeked into the file once again, pushing it open in Derek’s hands. “Says here he’s struggling with something.” Boyd said, as if he had heard Derek’s thoughts. He lifted it from his hands, using an index finger to track the words on the paper. They were basically alone in the room now, save for the speaker who sat quietly behind his desk. “Not school or whatever, something personal.” The taller male paused. “Needs ‘a listening ear’.”

Derek made a sound similar to a snort. “Somehow I’m going to be that listening ear- are you _kidding me?_ ” He grabbed the file from Boyd and stomped over to where the man - Angel - had handed them out. 

He tossed it onto the table. “I need a new file.” Derek groused.

The man looked up at him, smiling. “Sorry, but that one’s yours until it’s deemed complete.” His tone said that there was no room for argument, but Derek was naturally an argumentative person, and he wasn’t going to let some angel-man-person tell him otherwise.

“You don’t understand.” Derek said, pointing down to the open file. “I _know this kid_ , and he won’t listen to a goddamn word I say-”

“Language.” Corrected the head angel.

“He’s thick-skulled and stubborn and I’ve _seen first hand_ , the sort of crap he gets himself into!” Derek continued talking, his dismissive tone only fueling his anger. “I refuse to take this file, there’s got to be someone better for Stiles than me.” He leaned back, opening his arms, staring daggers into the man behind the desk. 

“There’s other Angels here who will make him listen to what they have to say.” If he was begging, then he was begging. There was _no way_ he could take this, there was no way in He-

“The case is yours, Mr Hale.” Said the man, angel, guy. “I can’t revoke or change anything about it until it’s complete.” He picked it up and brandished it at Derek once again, a lift of his eyebrows all the challenge the new guardian angel needed.

A few seconds passed before the Hale boy huffed and snatched it back, carefully tempering his anger. He wasn’t stupid enough to keep pushing at a fight he wasn’t going to win.

“You’ll be sent down in about thirty minutes.” Said the man as Derek started walking away, head bowed as he scribbled something on the paper in front of him. His wings were tucked carefully behind his back, making him seem docile. Derek knew that everyone had a limit, even dead people. 

“Fine.” Derek grunted, turning to walk away. 

The angel cleared his throat. “Mr Hale?” 

Derek stopped, resisting the urge to narrow his eyes at the men. “What?”

“Make yourself presentable, but please remember that only your chosen can see and speak to you.”

“Yeah yeah.” Derek grumbled as he passed Boyd to head back to his room. He needed space, time, and a plan. If he was stuck coaching or helping or whatever it was he was supposed to do, for _Stiles Fucking Stilinski_ , then he needed to be prepared.

* * *

Boyd stood by the door of the room when Derek entered. Half an hour had passed, Derek wasn’t sure what his gameplay was going to be, but he was sure it would work- it had to work. He was going to fix whatever Stiles’ problem was, get him good, and then be back here before dinner.

Whenever dinner was. Right.

“So incase you forgot,” Boyd intoned, coming over to Derek, picking some lint off of his shirt. “Only your chosen can hear and see you, and while you aren’t supposed to go looking for family or to cause harm in any sense, once your Earthside we can’t dictate how you do your job.” He shrugged, and Derek felt a sense of hope. Maybe he could figure out a way to get his uncle to know he was okay, that he was safe. Not completely sound, obviously, as he was going to be Stiles Stilinski’s fucking Guardian Angel-

“Comedown is in ten seconds.” Boyd said, stepping back and away from Derek, who found himself in the middle of the room.

“How long will I be there?” The new angel tried to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Until the task is finished.”

“How will I know?” Derek asked, a sudden light beginning to envelope him. He knew he looked at least a little shocked, especially by the smirk Boyd was giving him.

“Oh, you’ll know. You’re not giving yourself enough credit, Derek.”

“Boyd-”

The light got too bright, and Derek closed his eyes, turning his head slightly. 

When he opened his eyes once again, he was standing outside of Beacon Hills High. That was far too quick. Where was Boyd? Was he alone? He didn’t have much time to think about anything. The bell rang, a shrill and annoying sound and he flinched, and watched with a knot of anxiety in his gut as students spill out of the doors. Derek can’t help himself when his eyes begin to search amongst the sea of faces for the freckled one he knew well enough. 

It was difficult to express how he’s feeling. Angry that he got stuck with the one person he didn’t like. Anxious because what if Boyd had been lying? What if everyone saw him, and just didn’t remember who he was? Was he truly that forgettable?

An ice cold feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

Then, as if summoned, amber honey eyes lock onto his and the wind in his lungs is knocked out of him.

Stiles saw him.

Shit.


End file.
